Before it’s too late

By Muhammad Ejaz Khan

Constituting committees and announcing administrative or financial packages for redressing the six-decade old Balochistan grievances are not a new phenomenon. In retrospect, we find similar packages were announced by previous governments, but they came to a naught. All claims of development were exposed when the people of the province realised they were made just false promises.

“I have lived all my life in Quetta but I’ve yet to see any development take place. All you get to see are false promises and fake packages made by one government after another,” says 60 years old Abdul Mannan Baloch, a shopkeeper, while talking to TNS at Saryab road, Quetta.

These views are not peculiar only to Abdul Mannan. A majority of the population in the interior feels they have long lived with a lack of basic amenities such as potable water, electricity, healthcare and communication networks. The future also seems bleak to them, despite the fact that all the hidden mineral and natural resources are found here.

The five-tier Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan package — constitutional, political, administrative, economic and monitoring mechanism — envisages the withdrawal, from Sui, of the Army that would be replaced with the Frontier Corps; a fact-finding commission headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court/high court to probe into the death of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti; inquiry by the superior judiciary into the killings of three Baloch leaders — Ghulam Muhammad, Lala Munir and Sher Ahmed — and target killings. Had the basic necessities and rights as per Constitution been given to Balochistan earlier, the present political unrest could have been avoided.

Malik Baloch, a graduate who is unemployed for the past five years, is ready to believe in the veracity of the package. He says he is hopeful he will get a job now — that is, if appointments are made on merit.

The irony is that the exiled Baloch leadership rejected the package even before its announcement, while the Baloch nationalists are of the view that it is not a substitute for the constitutional package. “We demand a constitutional package that encompasses all aspects of provincial autonomy and control over the province’s mineral and other natural resources,” asserts Senator Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo of National Party.

Conspicuously, the PPP leadership claims to have taken the stakeholders into confidence, while talks are in progress with several others. But Mir Suleman Daud Khan, the current Khan of Kalat, says the government has failed to bring all stakeholders on board. He also points towards the amount given in the package being “meagre”.

“The authority to use and utilise its mineral and natural resources should be Balochistan’s own matter, just as Punjab and Sindh consider their agriculture and other produce as their provincial matter,” he adds.

“Here, the authority rests with the Centre — a disparity which is not identified by the Constitution,” says Professor Nadir Bakht, Head of the department of Political Science, University of Balochistan.

The PPP leadership believed the announcement of the “rights” package for Balochistan was a long-desired step towards the solution of the basic problems faced by the people of the province. According to Senator Raza Rabbani, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani will himself monitor the implementation of the package so as to avert any bureaucratic hurdles on its way. The federal government has assured that the constitutional committee is working to finalise the constitutional package for all the four provinces and that the package will also be introduced in the joint session of the parliament soon. But the nationalist groups in Balochistan believe that their problems cannot be resolved unless a constitutional package is drafted that grants the provinces the right to the resources that are produced on their land. (Courtesy: The News on Sunday)